My Living Room

It has been a while!  I have missed writing on my blog and connecting with all of you.  I am now up on instagram and looking forward to sharing more projects with you there.  Please follow me: @relovedrubbish.

I thought I would share my living room area with you in my studio apartment in the country. I repurposed and painted almost everything in my apartment and did it on a tight budget, so it is truly made up of reloved rubbish!

Since it is tiny space, I wanted to keep everything simple, uncluttered and fairly monochromatic.  My palette is grey, cream, white and natural.  The coffee table was four dollars at a yard sale and came complete with chippy paint.  I simply had a piece of glass cut for the top. On the floor, I put a fringed jute rug with a mini white cowhide.

This chair is one of my favorite pieces and also one of the first pieces I bought back when I started Reloved Rubbish six years ago. I paid five dollars for it! I sanded off the orange stain on the wood and had it upholstered in a beautiful grey linen.  I love the simple lines of this chair. Not only is this chair beautiful, but it is also really comfortable with a spring seat.

The bookshelf in the background is made of crates that I stained with driftwood grey stain.  I have a lot of books and am not willing to part with them even in tight quarters.  The painting in the background is a vintage botanical lily matted with linen and absolutely stunning.  I paid twenty dollars for it at an estate sale.  

As I mentioned, I live on a little country lane and you can see a peak of my view out my double french doors. I 'll show you full view later on in this post.

It may be surprising that the chair only cost five dollars until you see this before shot with the ratty fabric.  This is after I sanded it back to the natural wood.

I found this sideboard on Craigslist and when I checked the measurements, it fit exactly on that wall without an inch to spare.  I love the crisscross design on the doors.  

The hemp linen pillows were my splurge and came from Patine, a local Santa Cruz shop, that imports and reurposes antique and vintage textiles and other goods from Europe.  The pillows are simple, but offer a beautiful texture in person and so soft with down filling.

The sideboard before I painted it.

I mixed French Linen Chalk Paint with Old White to create a soft grey and then sealed it with a pewter gilding paste mixed with Annie Sloan's clear wax for a slightly shimmery finish.

I found these watercolor horse paintings at a yard sale for a few dollars.  They were in this frame, but the frame was an orange wood color, the matte was bright blue, and the glass was broken - all easy fixes!  I painted the matte with Old White Chalk paint tinted with a little French Linen for a pale grey. Then I painted the frame with Graphite Chalk Paint and replaced the glass.

The container holding my orchids is an iron piece from France.  I snatched it up when my business partner was selling it at Loot. I try not to buy too much that we are selling at the shop, but every once in a while I can't pass up something special like this piece.

I use it to hold my collection of sea glass and shells from my many excursions to local beaches.

The couch is a vintage piece that I found on Craigslist and had reupholstered.  I sanded all the finish off the wood parts to expose the natural wood.  It is a seven foot long sofa and works great as a guest bed for the occasional visitor.

This is my view from my balcony of rolling hills, oaks, and the flower farm next door.  This pic is from the summer when the gladiolas were in bloom.  The flower farmer also grows tulips (just starting to sprout now) and dahlias.  He grows so many amazing varieties of tulips, that people often stop their cars to take pictures when the tulips are in bloom.

The backyard backs to open land and the Soquel Creek.  This is my little bit of heaven in a tiny studio in the country.